So, I bought the new Massive Attack CD, 100th Window, today. Once I
brought it home, I started to rip it to mp3s (as I do with all music I
buy), and the thing will not rip. I take a closer
look at the packaging, which has this:

This disc contains copy control technology. It is designed
to be compatible with CD audio player, DVD players and PC-MS Windows
95, Pentium 2, 233Mhz, 64MB RAM or higher, MAC 8.6-9 *with the
carbonlib extension and mac OS X. ... This label copy information is
the subject of copyright protection.

(Aside: dig the meta-copyright notice.)

Also, the disc doesn't have the CD logo, which I guess means it's not
a real CD.

Now, this pisses me off on several levels, but the biggest issue for
me is this: I own this CD, and I believe I should be entitled to
listen to it for personal use as I see fit. If I choose to do it in
the form of mp3s, I should be able to do so. To abuse the CD format on
the assumption that I'm going to let others copy from me (which I
don't do) is the kind of thing that will make me an ex-customer. If
all CDs were to go this route, I will stop buying them.

Yesterday I received 602 hits from searches for some variant of
smokinggun, all due to this
post about my own accidental visit to smokinggun.com instead of thesmokinggun.com. The poor
guy who runs smokinggun.com (where you can get some killer
bookmarklets) doesn't seem to pleased with things:

There are no documents on Joe Millionaire, Michael Jackson or anyone
else at this website. There never were. Don't email asking where they
are.

You have come to the wrong place.

So many users have come here on accident that I am being charged $760
in service fees for last month. I normally pay $25.

I hope my post has at least helped some people on their way to the
right place, which, again, is THEsmokinggun.com. Enjoy.

Went and saw the LAGQ (Los Angeles Guitar Quartet) at the Chan today. They can play - their (hilarious) deconstructed version of Pachelbel's Canon ("Pachelbel's Loose Canon") went from classical to latin to rock (complete with shouted PACHELBEL!) to jazz. And that was just the fun thing they did for the encore - the regular program was excellent. Check 'em out if you get the chance.